Heritage Committee

Tuesday, 2 August 2016

Museum Highlights: 1993 Regatta Ribbon

As it's Regatta Day tomorrow, another Royal St. John's Regatta post is in order. There are so many amazing Outer Cove teams to profile that we could not just pick one. Although it's very tempting to focus only on the 1901 and 1982 crew, we also have those who went to the Canada Games, the 1989 juvenile team, the 1991 Smith Stockley-Outer Cove team, or the current Outer Cove team who will be competing tomorrow (weather permitting). Instead, we decided to look at another museum artifact that is always part of the Regatta: a Regatta Ribbon donated by Michelle Hickey.

1993 Regatta Ribbon in the museum collection [997.15.4]

This particular ribbon is from 1993 and would have been worn by a member of the Regatta committee. The ribbon is traditionally done in the colours of the old Newfoundland flag. This one is a little faded, but the colours are pink, white and green. The style of the ribbon changes year after year, but the colours are typically represented.

If you look closely, you can see that the ribbons worn by the committee in 2003 were very similar to this one. Source

The second part of the ribbon contains the necessary race information. In this case, it is the 167th rowing, the Lieutenant Governor is Frederick W. Russell, and weather permitting, the Regatta was to take place on Wednesday, August 4th (it went ahead on that day). The program for the races is listed, including the race and time. The names of the boats and corresponding flag colours are also listed. It explains that the House Flags of winning boats will be hoisted, and the coxswains will wear jackets of corresponding colours. This allows for the committee members to easily identify each team throughout the day. The coxswains are also listed.

Necessary information for committee members is printed on this part of the ribbon. [997.15.4]

And for easy reference, the current records up to that year are printed on the ribbon. In this case it reads:

Record for the Full Course - 8:59:42 made by Smith Stockley-Outer Cove in 1991 rowing in the Good Luck

Record for the Women's Course - 5:08:34 made by OZ FM in 1990 rowing in the Blue Peter VI.

Finally, the remainder of the ribbon lists the Regatta president, honourary presidents, the St. John's Regatta committee and the list of officials for that Regatta (such as the judges, timekeepers, gunners, etc.).

1907 Regatta Committee members wearing their ribbons. From The Rooms [1.502.057]

These ribbons would typically be worn upside down. Looking closely at this one, there are faint holes at the bottom of the ribbon but none at the top, indicating that it was indeed worn upside down. This allows the wearer to turn the ribbon upward so that they can read the information, instead of having to take it off every time they wanted to read it.

Tomorrow (weather permitting) see if you can spot the officials and take note of their Regatta Ribbons.

1906 Regatta Committee members wearing their ribbons. From The Rooms [1.502.064]

And because we are the Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove Museum, here are the highlights on how the Outer Cove Coldwell Banker team did on Wednesday, August 4, 1993. From the Royal St. John's Regatta website.